5 Tips for Drinking Responsibly (While at Work)

#2. Avoid Confrontation

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One of the biggest keys to drinking at work and getting away with it is keeping a low profile. Keep bathroom trips and conversations with co-workers to a bare minimum. Instead of spending four of your eight working hours standing by the copier listening to some IT dweeb talk about the plot points of his next Game of Thrones fan fiction piece and pretending you don't enjoy it, maybe, for once in your life, just sit at your desk and do some work. I know, that part sucks, but understand, you'll be doing it while covertly getting hammered. There is no bigger buzz than the one that comes with getting one over on The Man.

GettyAccording to the first result in my stock image search, this is "The Man."

This will likely be the hardest part, but try to keep even browsing the Internet to a minimum. The last thing you need is for your boss to stroll past your desk and look over your shoulder to find that you're drunkenly shopping for Star Trek lunchboxes on eBay. Next thing you know, they're either reprimanding you for slacking off at work or trying to be your friend because they like Star Trek, too. It's not really the individual awfulness of those two outcomes that should concern you, but rather the human interaction that will be involved in carrying them out.

Whether you're explaining how shopping on eBay does technically qualify as "work related" or explaining to your boss that you'll never be friends because he is the devil, you're bound to be spewing vodka fumes all over the place while doing it. If anything is going to be your downfall on this most glorious of days, it will be socializing with the people around you. Don't do that.

Of course, you're not going to be able to fend off every unwanted visitor. Inevitably, someone will come to your desk with lots of questions. The main question, of course, being "Why in the hell does it reek like booze in here?" Don't worry, there is a solution.

#1. Use Hand Sanitizer

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Hand sanitizer, for all intents and purposes, is just a bottle of alcohol. That doesn't mean you can mix it with gin and vermouth and call it a sanitini, but the smell of hand sanitizer is undeniably alcohol-like. And nothing masks the smell of illicit alcohol like a gigantic stash of alcohol that nobody can complain about.

If people come to your desk unexpectedly, just look up, greet them with a smile and pump a dollop of hand sanitizer into your palm. If they even briefly wonder why it smells of alcohol around your desk, those concerns will be quelled when they realize you're just one of those idiots who can't wipe his hands on his pant leg without feeling the need to scrub the toxins from his skin.

GettyThis is just like touching a toilet, you know.

If you want to really take advantage of the wonderful masking abilities of hand sanitizer, get one of those gigantic bottles with the pump on top. Place it on your desk and unscrew the top, and throw the pump away. This will keep a steady breeze of alcohol fumes blowing throughout your work space. If anyone questions why you have an open bottle of hand sanitizer on your desk, go on at length about how you read somewhere that touching the pump of the hand sanitizer bottle with a dirty hand is viewed as a mockery of the industry in some circles and that, as somewhat of a hand sanitizer connoisseur, you choose to keep your use of the product within the acceptable standards of the community.

In other words, bore the shit out of them until they leave you and your buzz to enjoy each other's company in peace.